Sixteen percent of chief information officers plan to add staff to their IT departments in the first six months of 2014, according to the Robert Half Technology IT Hiring Forecast and Local Trend Report released today. That compares with 11 percent who said they planned to add IT staff in a fourth-quarter survey.

Sixty-seven percent of CIOs plan to hire only for open IT roles, up from 62 percent with similar plans from the second half of 2013.

“We continue to see strong demand for IT professionals across the United States,” said John Reed, senior executive director of Robert Half Technology. “Professionals with skills in mobile applications development, data analytics and networking are in especially high demand.”

The IT hiring forecast for the first half of 2014 found:

• CIOs adding more staff to IT departments: 16 percent
• CIOs planning to hire only for open IT roles: 67 percent
• CIOs planning to put IT hiring plans on hold: 15 percent
• CIOs planning to reduce their IT staff: 2 percent

In the same survey, 88 percent of CIOs said they are somewhat or very confident about their companies’ prospects for growth in the first six months of 2014, and 69 percent said they are somewhat or very confident that their firms will invest in IT projects in the first half of the year.

Among the CIOs surveyed, 63 percent said it's somewhat or very challenging to find skilled IT professionals today. Seventeen percent said it is most difficult to find skilled talent in the functional area of networking.  Security and help desk/technical support followed with 14 percent and 13 percent respectively.

Fifty-seven percent of U.S. technology executives surveyed said that network administration is among the skill sets in greatest demand within their IT departments. Windows administration and desktop support followed, each with 51 percent of the response.

The survey is based on more than 2,300 interviews with CIOs from a random sample of U.S. companies in 23 major metro areas.